


No Less Than Fated

by Aenya



Category: Free!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Royalty, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-26
Updated: 2019-04-26
Packaged: 2020-02-04 19:03:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18610609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aenya/pseuds/Aenya
Summary: And so, for the good of his family and countrymen, in the unseasonably cold spring after his twentieth birthday, prince Rin quietly locked away whatever remained of his foolish romantic heart and accepted the invitation for a conveniently arranged betrothal - one that would seal a long-awaited peace and trade treaty, and calm the ever-looming tension and threat of the Iwatobi Empire.





	No Less Than Fated

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for the Across Oceans Zine.  
> Dedicated to the [RH Discord chat](https://discord.gg/prv2ssK), you guys never fail to inspire me ❤

By the time Rin was seven years old, he thought he knew _exactly_ how his adult life would go.

It would always start with the “Words” - a simple phrase that had by then appeared on his skin, splashed across his collarbone. He knew all about the _First Words_ , he would read every book on the topic he could get his hands on in the palace library, and pestered anyone who would listen.

It seemed like something straight out of one of the fairytales his mother used to read to him and Gou before bed when they were younger. The idea that he would one day meet someone _Destined_ for him, and that on first meeting their souls would instantly recognize one another, leaving them to exchange the words etched on their skins - it was so much more than merely "romantic", it seemed like something greater than life itself! It spoke to an innocent part of him that yearned for the fated day to come as soon as possible.

He eagerly sat in for lessons on etiquette and history, on the protocols he'd need to abide by as the crown prince of the seaside Kingdom of Sano, strictly followed all the rules imposed on him because of having a not-yet-realized open soulbond. He knew he needed to always pay attention and be careful before he spoke, certain that those he wanted to talk to wore vividly red jewellery, usually bracelets, indicating they already had their soulmates.

There weren't many people around him that wouldn't have complete soulbonds in the first place, as he was usually confined to a secure wing of the castle only those with special clearance could access, but the thought that he needed to - at all costs - avoid getting accidentally soulbonded always hung in the back of his mind. Not just because it might have caused a scandal for someone of his status, but also because he needed to make sure the circumstances of his First Words Meeting would be as _romantic_ as possible. It would bond him to his soulmate for life, they would fall in love and get married, so their first meeting had to be perfect of course!

However, close to his eleventh birthday, Rin had started to learn that just because someone had a soulmate, it didn't mean they loved them, or that they were going to be together. He sometimes met those in their old age who had never even met their soulmates, saw adults in miserable soulbonded relationships, and even those who were forced to be apart despite their soulbonds to one another. Up until then, he thought he'd meet his Destined Pair, immediately fall in love with his soulmate, and that their marriage would be as beautiful and loving as that of his parents. And now he was starting to understand that life didn't really look like something that came out of the pages of a colourfully illustrated book for children.

Around the age of fifteen, he'd slowly begun to realize he would _never_ be able to have a fairytale First Words experience with his future _wife_ , would never be able to look at a _woman_ and feel his heart race, and to protect himself he'd need to become one of the nobles who treated marriage as a convenience and necessity to exist in high society without trouble. Someone of his position and status needed to accept the painful reality of sacrificing his bid for true love in favor of "the good of the people".

  
And so, for the good of his family and countrymen, in the unseasonably cold spring after his twentieth birthday, prince Rin quietly locked away whatever remained of his foolish romantic heart and accepted the invitation for a conveniently arranged betrothal - one that would seal a long-awaited peace and trade treaty, and calm the ever-looming tension and threat of the Iwatobi Empire.

Within mere days he departed Sano with a small inconspicuous entourage, which included his mother, and headed to Iwatobi for the engagement ceremony - one that would "force" an _artificial_ soulbond between him and his betrothed. Of course, he knew what it entailed, painfully aware that noble families in many a country followed this custom to make sure arranged marriages were seen as more "legitimate".

Personally, Rin found the practice awful and knew his parents weren't particularly fond of the idea either, that it wasn’t a future they ever wanted for him. Soon he would have to marry the daughter of the royal Nanase family of Iwatobi, and their union would be the finale of the long-awaited and much-needed trade agreements. He would have to live a lie from then on, but between either him or _Gou_ being pushed into an arranged marriage and forced soulbond with a stranger, the choice was simple.

  
He's not sure what he expected to see after coming to Iwatobi, but the first impression he had of the “Empire” was that books alone could have never prepared him for how vastly different it was from his home - and how different it was from the books themselves. The houses did not _loom_ , for one. They were taller than back in Sano though, and more tightly packed in a way that made the slightly narrow streets somewhat claustrophobic at times, but he found that wandering around the capital of Iwatobi was... Pleasant?... Downright enjoyable, even.

He had set off alone shortly after they had reached the city gates, his mother rather accurately pointing out that Rin “looked as if he had left his stomach behind in Sano”. He tried to blame his queasiness on the week's worth of travel upriver by boat; Miyako wasn't fooled. After all, the official ceremony was due in only a few days' time. With that in mind, she allowed him some time alone before he needed to meet his bride-to-be for the first time at the castle towering over the city.

...At least the castle had the decency to loom. _Something_ should be _looming_ in a place that calls itself an _Empire_ , Rin felt. Perhaps that was just his increasingly cranky mood talking because his second impression of Iwatobi was how bitingly _cold_ it was. Even the personal cloak that Toraichi himself draped across Rin's shoulders in a silent promise of support wasn't helping now, no matter how tightly Rin pulled it around himself.

The crammed nature of the city eventually gave way to more sparse buildings as he neared the clear blue river separating what Rin assumed were the areas that nobility occupied and where the royal family's lands began. Aristocrats could afford something as luxurious as unused real estate space. Unfortunately, that also meant wider roads, which did nothing to stop the bitingly cold wind. Soon enough Rin felt frozen stiff, his breath misting visibly in the frigid air.

He was just about ready to make his way towards the castle at a jog to warm himself up when he noticed someone running from beyond the gate leading towards the richer areas of the city. At first Rin had a brief panicked moment thinking he was about to be attacked and readied himself for it, but when the man reached the bridge crossing the river, he hastily removed most of his clothes and kicked his shoes off, climbed the railing, and jumped into the river below.

Rin was momentarily _stunned_. If it weren't for the clothes strewn about on the road, he would think he had imagined it! The unmistakable splashing sounds of someone swimming reached his ears.

...In the undoubtedly _ice-cold_ river. _In April_.

Shock gave way to incredulity and Rin rushed over to the bridge's railing, leaning over it to look down into the water below and- yes, there was a man, the very picture of serenity itself, happily floating on the surface, and occasionally turning over to swim upstream again when the current took him too far away.

"Are you out of your mind?!?!", Rin couldn't help screaming down at him from the bridge. What the hell was he doing?! He was going to freeze or—

The eyes that briefly glanced at Rin were the shade of the clearest blue he had ever seen, not even rivaled by the color of the summer sea on a dazzling day. But the voice that floated up to him without even giving him a _second_ glance was crass and paired with a scoff.

"The water won't hurt me.", was all Rin got out of him before he turned, _dived_ into the icy water, and all but disappeared, swimming downstream this time.

Rin shuddered violently. He couldn't even imagine how freezing it would be to try swimming in this cold. He was so stuck between half-hearted amazement and horror that he didn't notice two men run past him onto the bridge, until one of them started shouting at the man in the river.

"For the last time, you're not actually a merman, you can't just run off to swim like that! Especially not _today_!"

"Asahi, he insists on “half-fish-man”, not "merman", you know this.", the other one said, beginning to pick up the clothes strewn on the ground.

"I don't give a damn what he wants to be called, unless it gets him out of the river and us out of trouble, Ikuya! ...Oi! Mackerel-brain! Are you listening to me?!"

The flash of red on the wrist of the man angrily shaking his fist at the swimmer caught Rin's eye. A thick, vividly red leather bracelet, one clearly pointing out the soulbonded status. A brief glance at the shorter man picking up clothes was all that Rin needed to confirm that they both had matching bracelets.

Suddenly, Rin realized that he was absentmindedly clutching at his chest, his hand gripping what was resting under his clothes just above his collarbone - his own sole piece of jewelry. An ornate locket, inside which the words of his soulmark were engraved, ever since the day they had appeared on his skin.

It was common practice for unsoulbonded nobles to carry such trinkets. If they ever met someone without a soulbond they would need to show their soulmark words to each other, so that they could say _something else_ to avoid an accidental bond. Rin knew this is what he needed to with his betrothed soon. They would trade their respective words to each other and actively say them, forcing a fake soulbond to take hold, and—

It felt like the world suddenly tilted under his feet, so much that he needed to bodily lean against a nearby wall to steady himself, the hand on the locket tightening its grip.

"The water won't hurt me...", he whispered under his breath, breaking out in a cold sweat at the realization.

  
_It couldn't be_...

  
He _can't_ have traveled so far, only to have a random stranger blurt out his soulmark words mere hours before he would meet the woman he was supposed to spend the rest of his life with!

...It was a coincidence! He couldn't possibly know whether the words he spoke to that swimmer were the matching First Words either, so it must have just been a _very_ weird coincidence. Nothing more. Yes, of course. Just a coincidence...

Slowly the feeling of overwhelming panic subsided as he became aware that one of the men from the bridge was now asking him whether he was okay. Quickly Rin pushed himself away from the wall and nodded in thanks, giving a half-hearted excuse of feeling tired, and began to briskly walk towards the castle. 

By the time he reunited with his entourage, he _almost_ managed to convince himself he didn’t completely turn this diplomatic trip into an unprecedented disaster with his lapse of caution. And if he did... Well, he also managed to further resign himself into living an even deeper _lie_ from then on. If he was going to fake being in love with a woman, he might as well try to fake a whole soulbond as well... No matter how much it hurt.

His gloomy musings were soon distracted by the flurry of activity surrounding the preparations for meeting the royal family. A quick wash, a change of clothes, an outright refusal to discard his father’s cloak from his pre-planned formal outfit... His mother even dabbed some makeup into his cheeks and under the eyes, claiming he looked far too pale; he didn’t protest.

Minutes seemed to blur together and in no time at all the heavy doors to where his future awaited him opened noiselessly. And it wasn’t until this moment that Rin realized how woefully unprepared and _terrified_ he was. The light streaming in through the tall windows was too bright, the noise of greetings too loud even above the deafening thumping of his heart, everything was _too much_ all at once.

Thankfully, not a lot was required of him for a while, he simply nodded his greetings, letting his mother and their accompanying ministers and diplomats go through all the customs and gift exchanges. He was barely paying attention to anything, and so it took him a while to notice the increasing tension with which the adults in the room were beginning to speak. He finally shook himself out of his stupor and looked around more alertly when Gou’s name passed someone’s lips. What would _Gou_ have to do with anything here?...

It took a few moments of silent observation for the reality to dawn on him.

Aside from the two queens... There were no other _women_ in the room.

... There was however a startlingly blue pair of eyes boring deep into his. And two familiar-looking young men in the back, flicking very worried looks back and forth between Rin and— 

  
... _Oh_...

  
Unconsciously Rin took a small step forward, and as if drawn by some magnetic force, so did the would-be-merman.

...Nanase Haruka.

Everything suddenly made sense and fell into place, Rin’s anxiety vanishing in an instant. Of course, someone made a mistake. _Haruka_ was not a woman’s name, and neither was _Rin_. Neither of the sides of the betrothal felt it necessary to make sure, though.

They met each other in the middle, Haruka removing a simple gold necklace from his neck and offering it to Rin wordlessly. Predictably, the sentence “ _Are you out of your mind_?” was engraved on it. Rin couldn’t help but snort under his breath, his cheeks warming as he took the chance to take a closer look at his betrothed. _His soulmate_.

He was _stunning_. Rin would be more embarrassed at how quickly smitten he was if the circumstances of their meeting weren’t so weird. Before he had the chance to ask anything, Haruka spoke first.

“At the river, I thought you were Asahi. I had water in my eyes. I didn’t check to make sure.” He spoke softly, gesturing to one of the men behind him, the redhead - who waved nervously. Rin found himself fighting a losing battle against a smile.

“Do people question your mental stability often enough that I should worry?”

Haruka responded with only the mere flicker of a smile, but it was enough to send Rin’s heart into a small frenzy. It was beautiful, yet it was nothing compared to the mesmerizing way Haruka’s eyes sparkled when he asked: 

“Is it true that the ocean stretches beyond the horizon, farther than the eye can see?”

Rin nodded, feeling unmoored.

“...Do you want to see for yourself?”

Clearly, it was the right thing to say, because the moment he did, Haruka’s entire face lit up with an almost childish, innocent hope. It quickly dampened itself to something more subdued though.

“...I want to be _free_...”, he whispered, and their still immature soulbond responded in turn with a feeling of longing that Rin understood very well. He sensed they had similar childhoods of nothing but isolation and restrictions, yearning for things they probably couldn’t have. But... They _could_ , now.

“Haruka—”

“ _Haru_.”

“Haru, then... I’ll show you. _Everything_. Like the way the light dances across the ocean waves at sunrise... We’ll walk on the sand dunes that move with the winds, and swim in the rivers... We’ll go wherever you want to. Anywhere. We can be free together...”, Rin whispered. “I’ll show you... It will be a sight you’ve never seen before!”

The hand that took his in response was heavy with the promise of fulfilling long-forgotten dreams, and through their soulbond he felt Haru’s _joy_ flowing into him, carrying them into their future.

  


**Author's Note:**

> Beta'd by the lovely [Rya](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amberemerald/)!
> 
> Artwork included is part of the zine collab (posted with permission of course), created by the wonderfully talented [Laomin](http://laomin.tumblr.com)! Once again many thanks for working on this with me, I am still overwhelmed ❤ !!!
> 
> I have half a mind of making a sequel to this if people are interested! Let me know what you thought!


End file.
